Yesterday I brewed my first gluten free beer, for a friend, and I did a partial mash. Here is the recipe, and then some notes and pictures. I minimized the sorghum percentage to hopefully avoid twang and not have an overly sweet beer, and of course in the search for QUALITY. The jury is still out as to what comes of it, since my mash efficiency appears to have suffered. Next time I will probably just do extract with rice syrup, sorghum syrup, Belgian candi sugar and hops, like Deschutes' GF Pale Ale, to save hassle and fears on efficient conversion. I've never even tasted a gluten free beer! Any thoughts?

Boiled the cereal in 2 gal water for 25 min. to gelatinize. Added 1.5 gal water and heated/stirred to 154 and added milled oat malt, corn and flaked oats plus 2.5 tsp of amylase powder. stirred on stove top keeping it 147 - 151, more on the low end, for 70 min. Because it was very cloudy, I added another tsp amylase 1/2 way thru. Poured thru zapap, scraping bottom with spatula, and then rinsed with 1.75 gal 170F water. Still very cloudy and not very sweet, although iodine test showed it was converted. Still, I added the remaining 2 tsp of amylase from container and stirred at ~150F for another 25 minutes, after having added FWH addition of amarillo. Checked iodine test again (ok), and still didn't taste very sweet, but went ahead and added the sorghum syrup and all rice syrup and topped up to 5-gallon boil. Total amylase used ~2.5 Tbl!

Fermentation Notes------------------

Chilled with Immersion Chiller down to about 74F, and strained thru strainer into fermenter bucket. Added 1 gal water to hit 5.25 gal wort at 1.064 OG. Very viscous wort.

Used just 1 packet US-05 after aerating with o2 for 1.5 minutes, stirred in after 10 minutes.

With calculated 58% efficiency of mash, I'm expecting a starchy beer. I should have measured with narrow range hydrometer for accuracy of OG.Depending on actual pppg of Mighty Tasty Cereal (I guessed) I might have had better efficiency.

D2 added at 10 minutes.

Primary Fermentation: 14 days @ 66 degrees ramped to 68F last 4 days.

Ingredients minus flaked oats and hops (I omitted the malto dextrin on the right since I don't think I'll need it)

As I was afraid, I didn't get sufficient conversion on the mash. After additional research I found that what I previously had read that good mash temps for beta amylase in the mash is 147 - 153, is WRONG. Rather, it works best around 142F and starts to denature at 149F. My take is that I mashed too hot, hence the mediocre starch conversion.

After 6 days in primary, bubbling pretty much ceased in the airlock and the beer had only gotten down to 1.027 and remained cloudy as you can see in the picture. So, being quite positive that the fermenting beer does not have many remaining full sugar chains, today I went ahead and added 1/2 tsp of Beta Amylase first dissolved in a little warm water and stirred it in.

I realize that is a drastic action with potentially mediocre resulting beer, but I figured it was my only hope. Also, per some forums research, it has worked for some brewers. I called Crosby & Baker, who package the product I used this time, and the gentleman I spoke with agreed with my course of action, and said he didn't think I should add any less of the product. He also confirmed that their product is self-limiting, and so eventually should stabilize at a final gravity so I hopefully don't end up with rocket fuel, or worse, bottle bombs.

Actually, it came out very well. The addition of 1/2 tsp fresh amylase powder brought the beer down to 1.009 where it stabilized for the FG. I was in a hurry and stupidly did not cold-crash the beer for a couple days prior to bottling, and so ended up with too much sediment in the bottom of the bottles. When I bottled I only ended up with about four gallons of beer - there was a full gallon of sediment left behind at the bottom of the fermenter bucket. Soon after bottling it I gave a 6-pack to a friend for his mother and she said it was the best gluten-free she ever tasted. There hasn't been a chance for me to get it to the friend I brewed for, or for him to come get it, so it has stayed in the basement and is now well past prime, especially due to autolysis. A shame. I think I'll get one cold and try it!

If your BIL can take gluten-reduced beer (nearly gluten-free), I recommend brewing with Clarity Ferm.

well, I did some research, and found little consensus about the diastatic power of oat malt. It appears it might have enough to convert itself. Also, it wouldn't help to try to mash other GF gelatinized grains with syrups since most on the market (sorghum, rice) are made from unmalted grains.

I saw one person post to mash unmalted grains for awhile at normal mash temps to extract some enzymes, and then strain out those grains, boil them in fresh water to gelatinize, then re-add to the enzyme- rich water and mash.

And plenty of people end up with a viscous boil like I did, the ferment stalls, and the only recourse is to add amylase enzyme powder like I did. Although I've seen other suggestions to add the enzyme to a low enough mash temp to help along the conversion like I tried, and failed to do.

Next time I will probably go with Clarity Ferm and make a gluten-reduced all grain beer with 2-row, or if making a 100% GF beer, would first go certified GF syrups only, as in sorghum and rice syrup maybe along with some buckwheat honey or other non-grain fermentable(s), and skip doing any try at a mash.

Still, what I did worked and the complexity of the combination of oats, corn, rice, buckwheat and sorghum probably does make a better beer. Decisions, decisions.

A brewery in Portland just put out a GF dubbel that's pretty good. The style seems to lend itself to lighter body, they use stuff like tapioca, and the candi syrup really covers a lot of the GF "flaws".

Wow. They are certainly putting a lot of work into it. The holy grail here does seem to be something that is an equivalent for "beer" - as we know and love it.

The point is also well taken that there are numerous other malted beverages one can make with fruit and the like that would qualify as GF. Valid, and some of them are quite good, I'm sure. But the real prize seems to go to recreating good 'ole malt and hops beer.

I see in the poster Denny posted that they i.d. that certified GF oats were used in the dubbel. If you plan to brew a GF beer for a celiac patient highly sensitive to gluten, be sure that if you use oats that they are certified GF. Many, including the ones sold by Crisp Malting, contain beta-glucan that can impact persons with celiac disease.

The GF beer flaws Denny described seem to come from either 1) not tasting enough like beer or 2) cidery off-flavors from using too much syrup.

I like Belgian interpretations because the yeast produce typical flavors of the style with a high amount of adjunct/simple syrup. The traditional recipes are brewed with lots of simple sugar anyway!

High hopping rates can mask the odd-grain flavors, and I've had a great GF pale ale that was nicely hopped and used grains that complemented the beer well (Omission Pale comes to mind, but I've had a few others).

The chestnuts are a cool idea - maybe add them in the mash to help set up the filter bed?

I'm about to attempt to malt my own quinoa partially in an attempt to play around with gf brewing. I have no idea if this is going to work though. Might also try some millet (sorghum) and see what that does.

I don't remember if it was quinoa specifically, but James at BasicBrewing radio interview the guy from Colorado Malting Company, who gave an impressive spiel about how to malt some of those more obscure ones.